Ive a really good LED blacklight flashlight and have been wondering if its worth having in the pack on evening hunts. My streamlight is go to leader but its quite heavy. The pictured LED blacklight is light and roughly the size of a beer can and uses 3 AA batteries.

Im trying to wrap my mind around how this might work with blood trailing...especially on a trail of cold blood after waiting a couple hours to not pressure the wounded animal. I can fathom how it would enable finding a wounded critter still alive and warm. I sure couldve used it two years ago when I gut shot a buck and spent about 8 hrs searching brush at night and he was about 150 yds away.

I’ve been waiting to try my black light on a pig. Hard to do when they drop in their tracks because you used a gun.

Good form. What a good problem to have. Drag the next behind the truck, mock trail and see how it goes. Let us know.

Soonest Ill be able to test will be GRXH. After the hunt...I need to kill some of my roosters. Im gonna let some blood and go for a walk (with a dead cock) during daylight/dusk then return after nightfall.

Watching.
We're thinking of getting a thermal to test on blood tracking.
Thinking the Leupold LTO....

In my experience a thermal isn't useful if you're trying to find blood in grass. I haven't had to use it out of necessity, but I've tested my FLIR thermosight on blood in grass over the last two deer seasons. The blood drops and streaks you typically need to follow cool off too quickly to track, I can't see them even if I only wait 15 minutes because I know the deer went down quickly. I will say that my Thermosight has a fixed long range focus for shooting, so maybe something designed to focus within 5-10ft would fare better...but I would be surprised.

The thermal is great for shortcutting the end of your track by spotting the body the grass/brush. But I really love having it to see what and where deer are moving when I'm going out to hunt in the mornings and to help spot whats coming out before dusk in the evenings.

Im trying to wrap my mind around how this might work with blood trailing...especially on a trail of cold blood after waiting a couple hours to not pressure the wounded animal. I can fathom how it would enable finding a wounded critter still alive and warm. I sure couldve used it two years ago when I gut shot a buck and spent about 8 hrs searching brush at night and he was about 150 yds away.

Good form. What a good problem to have. Drag the next behind the truck, mock trail and see how it goes. Let us know.

Soonest Ill be able to test will be GRXH. After the hunt...I need to kill some of my roosters. Im gonna let some blood and go for a walk (with a dead cock) during daylight/dusk then return after nightfall.

My post came off completely differently than intended. Meant it in more of a funny haha way than how it reads. My bad.

Hopefully Iíll get in some hunts in March to test the light out. I have a new feeder light thatíll give me a lot more time to hunt after work

As someone that uses infrared cameras everyday for work, I can give a little insight. Using a thermal camera can absolutely work. And it can absolutely not. It's all about temperature differential. Say you shoot a pig on a warm summer evening. Blood is 90 something degrees, ground is 90 something degrees, you aren't going to see anything.

If you shoot a deer in 40 degree weather, you should be able to see the warmer blood for a few minutes, but unless you are going to use a $10,000+ camera, that window will be pretty small. I have a camera that can show you where a golfball landed on carpet, and 2 or 3 bounces, but I'm not taking it out in the woods at night.

So seeing large bodies (football sized or bigger) will be easy as long as the body is a few degrees warmer than the ambient temperature. Seeing a blood trail would take a combination of favorable circumstances, a short window and a lot of luck.

I have yet to spill blood for a test. However... The light has already proved valuable for finding a lost arrow.

I shot through my target butt and the grass behind has grown up and I lost the arrow. I searched for as long as I could allow...during the daytime. One night this past weekend I decided Id turn on the light to sample what natural flora and fauna showed up in the blacklight. Really none...except most foliage had a red tint....at night...under the blacklight. I noticed before departing my garage that all my blazer vanes and nocks lite up clear as day when illuminated with the blacklight. However, my feathers did not fluoresce/illuminate/(whatever the appropriate word)... I was not optimistic. I turned on the light and took a walk where my arrow should've gone. Nothing natural seemed to fluoresce but every piece of man made target butt material...illuminated under the blacklight. I couldnt see all this target butt material in daylight...but at night...under the blacklight...it was everywhere....small pieces. I went to my lost arrow trajectory path behind my target butt and BOOYAH!...there was my lost arrow...under three inches of grass/weed growth but shining bright as day...an illuminated neon green nock in a nonfluorescing sod forest.

Processed ground deer blood did not fluoresce for me. Im still hopeful for fresh blood fluorescense.

The Ol' Coleman lantern is the best thing I have ever used for blood trailing at night. Really make the blood shine.

There used to be a chemical based product called Starlight Bloodhound that I used to help me find a liver shot doe one night. It worked great. Spray it on the ground in front of you and it would light up the blood. Very small drops were easy to follow. Any time I lost the trail I would spray it and easily found the trail again. I haven't been able to find it any more.

Save you're money and get a good Fenix light or sniper hoglight and really pay attention where the animal goes. If you can't find your animal look up the local blood trailers in your area... here in Louisiana they are amazing and passionate. will show up any hour of the day/night to find an animal with their dog... give them a few beers and 50-100 bucks and they are happy!